1 Thessalonians 2:1-20, NLT
1 Thessalonians 2
Paul Remembers His Visit
1You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters,*2:1 Greek brothers; also in 2:9, 14, 17. that our visit to you was not a failure.
4For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts.
7As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children*2:7 Some manuscripts read we were gentle. among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children.
9Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you.
13Therefore, we never stop thanking God that when you received his message from us, you didn’t think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God—which, of course, it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe.
14And then, dear brothers and sisters, you suffered persecution from your own countrymen. In this way, you imitated the believers in God’s churches in Judea who, because of their belief in Christ Jesus, suffered from their own people, the Jews.
Timothy’s Good Report about the Church
17Dear brothers and sisters, after we were separated from you for a little while (though our hearts never left you), we tried very hard to come back because of our intense longing to see you again.